


The Last Mighty Child of Ungoliant

by HeidiErickson (orphan_account)



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: And I still love this one, Angst, Body Horror, But even she can't deny the powerful love Sam has for Frodo, Creepy, Dark, Gen, Horror, In which Shelob is pure evil, It's my baby, POV First Person, This may creep you out, Wrote this years ago on FFnet, You've been warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6261580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/HeidiErickson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shelob is one of the last mighty children of Ungoliant, and this is her story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Mighty Child of Ungoliant

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here I go…publishing a terribly weird and possibly disturbing one-shot about the queen of spiders herself. :P Read if you dare!! 
> 
> This one-shot was originally posted on FFnet on December 21, 2010, under the pen name of Heidi Erickson.
> 
> I’d like to thank estie793 (from FFnet) for pre-reviewing this one-shot for approval. Thank you for your encouragement!!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own The Lord of the Rings. All rights belong to J.R.R. Tolkien, Peter Jackson, and New Line Cinema.

I’m hungry. 

Not just hungry. I’m ravenous. Starving. Voracious. Carnivorous.

I push away the corpse of a maggot-infested Orc away with disgust. Getting up on all of my eights, I creep my way down my cool, moist tunnel.

I love the dark and cool in here. I love the feel of the concrete walls, the look of the gray everything. I love how water drips from the stalactites and makes tiny plopping sounds as they form dirty puddles everywhere. I love the lack of light – the way only mere hints of sunshine will peek into the jagged cavern holes and yet they are not enough to make me seen.

But most of all, I love the smell of death. What is the smell of death, you ask? Well, I will tell you. What is your worst smell? What do you hate the most to smell?

And whatever you hate to smell—skunk sprays, horse droppings, rotten eggs—is the smell of death to me. To me, death is merely an event that takes the life of a living being.

And I crave the sight of a slow death.

I creep past a hanging cocoon of a large black-and-white bird, hanging upside down. Its long orange beak forms a somber line, and its beady, black eyes stare into empty space without a twinkle.

I despise twinkling eyes. It shows life.

I gaze upon my uneaten prize. I had decided not to eat this magnificent beast of the air because I want whoever comes into my lair to behold some trophies of mine, so that they will cower and tremble, knowing they have come into a place of death and doom.

I hear distant voices and footsteps. My senses grow alert, and I quickly scurry away into hiding. What ingrate dares to enter my lair, and does it taste good?

It’d better not be an Orc or even an Uruk-hai. I’m quite wearied of them, and they taste of bitter, tough meat. And they are positively dreadful ornaments for my collections, being hideous creatures such as they are.

My fangs clack together and my stinger drips of paralytic venom, indicating how famished and eager I am. Maybe that strange gangrel creature whom I choose to spare its life for has come to bring me a sweeter meat. It comes seldom, and when it does, it usually has a deer or rabbit for me to eat. And because of its generosity, I allow it to live. It is the only miserable living being I allow to come through my lair untouched.

All eight of my eyes blink rapidly and I listen. Someone is calling for someone else. That is what the gangrel creatures always does to my meals—it loses them deliberately so that they will fall into my thousand traps.

This victim of mine has a very human-like voice. It is neither an Orc nor an Uruk-hai. And it cannot be an animal, for they do not speak.

I do not make my move just yet. I am a planner, a predictor. I lay in wait, waiting for my prey to grow afraid.

And then I smell it. It—their fear. And the smell of their anxiety brings me to them.

Usually, once when I catch my prey—either by one of my beautifully, eerily spun webs that I create to catch my prey and keep them hanging literally by a thousand threads or by my own mammoth limbs that can easily break bones, I jab them with my long stinger, sending paralytic venom into their blood, turning them limp like a rag doll. And then I devour…unless I want to save them for later, and when I do, I wrap them into a cocoon made from my fine silk. And then I will hang them somewhere safe but also to be seen.

I hear noises coming from down the tunnel. It is the sound of faint whimpers and scurrying footsteps.

And then I smell it.

It is the smell of fear. That musty, sweet, tantalizing smell of gut-wrenching fright that twists the very psyche of any poor unfortunate soul who enters my lair.

If I had a tongue and lips, I would be licking them right now. I swiftly but silently crawl down the tunnel, my sense of smell following that fear.

I slow down my steps, feeling the cold aura of trembling terror grow chillier and chillier. Finally, I come up before a ditch—and there it is. It is a human. But this human is very small, and it clearly is not a child. Its head is covered with a mass of dark hair, its body clad in filthy garments, and its feet—are most unusual. Do humans have feet that hairy?

Before I can guess-answer my own question, the prey senses my presence and jumps up with a startled gasp. Its pair of bright eyes are stunning—along with the very thing its hands hold—the very thing that I fear!

I fear nothing and no one—except for light. And this miserably ingrate dares to shine a brilliant vial of white light directly into my own sensitive eight eyes! I screech with fury, and the prey takes off running. Furious at being foiled by my own weakness, I stumble back blindly, blinking rapidly before recovering and storming after my victim. This victim must learn that I am not to be toyed with. Whoever or whatever enters my lair must meet its death, and that is final.

I hear a cry, and with a smug air, I realize the half-grown human must have been caught in my strongest web—which is more of a series of webs piled and weaved all together. That web was made especially for my larger prey.

I hear singing. The gangrel creature who presented this difficult, squirming prey to me is singing with an evil sneer to its tone. But this is not the time to be distracted; this is the time to give this intruder a lesson he’ll never forget.

But what a gift the gangrel creature has bestowed upon me! My prey has escaped once again with surprising strength and the help of his own sword. I snarl with anger and watch him run away. And within minutes, I smell no more fear.

I must have him. He is mine; he came into my lair! He belongs to me. Perhaps I shan’t eat him. I will only hang him as one of my best trophies. A difficult trophy, indeed.

Some time later, I decide to venture out of an opening to observe for any Orcs who might dare enter my home. The opening is near an open hall of steps leading to the land of ashes and fire. There is a tall tower with a flaming eye in it. It scares me. Even more than light scares me. But I must overcome my fear to gather my dinner.

And by luck, fate, or chance might provide—I am surprised to see the same victim exactly where I went to be! I had expected him to be caught in another trap of mine, but no. He is standing there with a bewildered, somber expression on his face.

I slowly, silently creep across the roofs and walls of my cave, staying behind my prey. I can’t help but wonder what this small human is doing here. In my many hundred years, only a few humans have I eaten. Only a few have I seen. And none of them ever have made it through my lair all to reach this opening into the land of ashes and fire. Why is this little one here? What is his mission? Upon briefly glimpsing his pale, smudged face, I feel only the tiniest bit of pity.

I am outraged with myself! Never before have I even considered sparing a life—save that gangrel creature! No. This prey is mine. He is here to be eaten. I have no care for whatever he came here for. He is mine!

I crouch down and stab him once in the chest with my stinger. And within a minute, he falls over, only to be caught by me, and I start wrapping him up gently in my array of sticky string. I will eat him instead of hanging him as a trophy. I need not to be reminded of how I almost pitied him enough to let him go.

And once again, by pure luck, fate, or chance, my plans to consume this miserable piece of a meal are foiled as I hear a sharp growl, a command to put my meal down. I look up only to see other half-grown human being glaring at me with a furious sneer. He is quite round; why does he need my meal?

The yellow-haired little one scowls at me, holding up a sword and the same glowing thing that I fear. He snarls at me, he insults me! I bare my fangs at him, waving my feet and howling in indignation. I cannot handle any more interruptions!

He exclaims, stepping forward, and I can tell he wants to fight.

Little fool! Does he honestly think he can overcome the last mighty child of Ungoliant? I chuckle silently to myself and drop my victim to the ground with a merciless thump. I snarl and jump forward.

Flies and gnats! His plump figure has me fooled into thinking he is slow; but, no! He is agile, just like my previous prey! I make a mad dash to sting him once and for all, but he fends me off with his sword and vial of magic light! I cover my eyes, screeching with fear. But my hunger will not be sated. I must eat.

I run him up a wall, trying to knock him down. But his little feet stamp into my eyes. The pain! The disgrace! Letting out a howl of rage, I reach up to bite him, but he takes hold of my fangs and once again, I cannot turn him defenseless. Even without his sword and light—back down on the ground—he is nearly impossible!

Finally he is tumbled off and rolls down my back. I leap down and slam my stinger on the dusty ground repeatedly, but this little fool keeps rolling around, evading my venomous spear.

He finally retrieves his sword just as I am about to gut him—and he guts me.

Feeling a pain I haven’t felt as worse as this one, I gasp and stumble back, defeated. My belly hurts so much from his sword. He exclaims, advancing forward with his sword and light. Covering my eyes, I let out a feeble squeal and squeeze back into a small hole entering my cold, wet cave.

Panting, I relax all of my muscles, hoping my bleeding will stop. My stomach hurts so much. I glare out of the opening with a humiliated stance. But what I see surprises me.

The little human who so mightily foiled me is kneeling over my lost prey. But he is not prepared to consume. Instead, I hear the sound of weeping. Curiously, I lean a bit closer to watch.

The crying little warrior holds my nearly fully-spun victim in his arms, resting his head on the victim’s own covered, sticky head.

And then I realize it. This human was not an opponent of mine in the hungry sense, but an opponent to keep my prey safe.

I watch the mournful scene with piqued interest. Never before have I seen a scene of such different emotion. I have seen only cruelty, arrogance, stupidity, anger, and fear, But I have never, ever seen this.

What is this? This display of emotion? The kind of emotion that leads you to grieve the loss of another.

But only I know that my rival’s sobbing is in vain. My prey is still indeed alive—just very much asleep.

I contemplate over what to do. I am wounded and unable to run away quickly. I am humiliated and not quite hungry anymore. I’m quite fatigued and yet interested in the events happening before me.

Just then, I hear Orcs and Uruk-hai coming up into the opening of my lair. My opponent looks up, quickly, and then quickly takes something out of my prey’s shirt, and rushes into safety.

A couple of foul Orcs and Uruk-hai saunter into my lair and they discover the body of my prey. They cackle and chatter amongst themselves about me. I feel disgust towards their attitude towards me—they think of me as a simple, mere creature who they can toy with easily. Ha! Cowardly fools. Do they not know the number of Orcs and Uruk-hai I have caught? I sincerely hope they meet their dooms one day at my own eight limbs and stinger.

Just a few moments later, the Orcs and Uruk-hai carry off my prey, just adding up to my already discouraging day. And then…the prey’s companion soon follows after. I am grudgingly impressed at his stout bravery and loyalty. No living being—not even the gangrel one—has ever approached me (or even Orcs and Uruk-hai) with such defiance and courage as this one did.

As humiliating as my defeat was, I dare to think that I shan’t forget that yellow-haired opponent of mine. A worthy rival he was.

But then I remember my duty; I remember my calling.

I am ruthless. I am merciless. I am heartless. I have no care for others’ emotions. I spare no life.

I am Shelob.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this as much as I remember enjoying writing it all those years ago!! :-) Thank you for reading this, and I hope you'll review as well! <3


End file.
